The curse of the bronze sky and the curse of the iron ground in Deuteronomy 28:23 are widely considered to be the strongest freestanding parallels between EST (Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaties) and Deuteronomy 28. Indeed, this parallel was so striking that in 1961, three years after EST was first published, the well-known Assyriologist Rykle Borger concluded that these curses must have been adopted from a Neo-Assyrian source. In 1965, Moshe Weinfeld argued that although these curses were too isolated to suggest on their own that they were borrowed from a Neo-Assyrian source, the sequence of curses in EST 419–430 and Deuteronomy 28:26–35, especially the sequence of leprosy and blindness, showed that these curses must have been borrowed from a treaty text similar to EST. That same year, working independently of Weinfeld, Rintje Frankena provided a plausible case that scribes in Judah could have had access to EST along with a plausible scenario for why they might have made use of EST. Building on the work of both Weinfeld and Frankena, several scholars, most notably Hans Ulrich Steymans and Eckart Otto, have argued that substantial portions of Deuteronomy 13 and 28, including the curse of the bronze sky and the curse of the iron ground, were borrowed directly from EST. This position, though certainly not a consensus position, has gained significant traction in studies on Deuteronomy. Against this position, this paper argues that the form of the curse of the bronze sky and the curse of the iron ground in Deuteronomy 28:23 is older than the forms they have in EST 528–532. This suggests quite strongly that these curses, along with the other parallels in Deuteronomy 13 and 28, are not lineally descended from EST. This paper proceeds in four parts. First, it will show that despite the arguments of C. Crouch and others, a close non-coincidental relationship must exist between EST 528–532 and Deuteronomy 28:23. Second, it will show that even though these curses are written in two different genres in EST (bronze sky=simile curse, iron ground=simple wish curse), these curses must have circulated as a pair prior to their incorporation into EST. Third, it will show that despite their sequence (iron, bronze) and the genre of the curse of the bronze sky (simile curse) in EST, both curses must have circulated as simple wish curses with the curse of the bronze sky coming first and the curse of the iron ground coming second. Finally, it will show that the forms of the curses in Deuteronomy 28:23 are older than the forms found in EST and are, therefore, not lineally descended from EST.